Red Penguins: The absurdist little-known story of how the Russian mob not-so-warmly greeted NHL investors

By Jim Slotek

Rating B-plus

With this NHL season being played out in a weird pandemic bubble, it seems an ideal time to release a documentary about another utterly weird chapter in hockey history.

Red Penguins is by Gabe Polsky, the former Yale hockey player who directed Red Army, the stellar and personal portrait of the last days of the formidable Soviet hockey machine.

It is, in fact, a farcical follow-up to that movie, taking place in the mob-ruled shambles of the failed state that was Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The Russian Penguin mascot, a target of food and beer thrown by the crowd, once beaten by police.

It also speaks to the delusional celebratory mood of the West. What could the fall of communism mean but open season for capitalists of all kinds, a windfall for investors who bought in early?

So it was that the threadbare former Moscow Red Army team was bought in the early ‘90s by a group that included Michael J. Fox, Mario Lemieux and was later joined by Disney. Fronting the group was the colourful Pittsburgh Penguins owner Howard Baldwin, whose journey through the hockey world had included a stint as President of the World Hockey Association.

But Western investors were on a collision course with another sort of robber baron, the Russian mob, who were there to grab a piece of every American dollar that entered the country. Fronting the Russian side was Viktor Tikhonov, the grim long-time Russian coach and the Red Army general manager Valery Gushin (who certainly quacks like a gangster, even today).

The team, now dubbed the Russian Penguins, was a hard-sell even without episodes that included mercenaries hired by Tikhonov to repel the Russian army when they tried to take back the arena.

By comparison with Red Army, Red Penguins is a less-polished, seat-of-the-pants effort that involved Polsky sitting and waiting in a Moscow hotel room for opportunities to do quickie interviews (with many still reluctant to talk about those days pre-Putin). But there is some evocative archival footage, including shots of the game’s between-period “entertainment,” which involved dancers from the strip club that operated within the arena.

And between them, Gushin and American promoter Steve Warshaw make a fine pair of Rashomon interviewees, with Warshaw describing the dangerous conditions and threats, and Gushin laughing it all off as paranoid fantasy.

But as absurd and comical as it seems, there was a deadly side to investing in mob-ruled Russia. Warshaw fielded death threats, and a San Jose Sharks’ draft pick, Alexander Osadchy was murdered.

Russian hockey played a serious part in the consciousness of a generation of Canadian hockey fans. And Red Penguins presents a fascinating anarchical missing piece between the mighty Soviet machine and the big-money, professional KHL that represents hockey in the era of Vladimir Putin.

Read Jim Slotek’s interview with Gabe Polsky and Steve Warshaw HERE.

Red Penguins. Directed by Gabe Polsky. Starring Howard Baldwin, Steve Warshaw and Valery Gushin. Now screening on major streaming platforms and in select Cineplex theatres.